Sawaki Roshi: To wander from place to place in this transitory world is to pursue "name". A person is born naked. But then he is given a name, registered, and covered with clothes, and a nipple is stuffed into his mouth, and so on. When he grows up you say, "He is great, strong, clever, rich." You find consolation only in words. In fact, everyone is just naked.
Uchiyama Roshi: Rousseau said, Even emperors, nobles and great, wealthy men were born naked and poor, and at the end of their lives they must die naked and poor." This is absolutely true. For a short while between birth and death, human beings put on various and complicated clothes. Some wear beautiful costumes, some rags, some prision uniforms. There are the clothes of status and class, of joy and anger, of sadness and comfort, of delusion and enlightenment. We unwittingly take these clothes to be out true selves, and devote ourselves to obtaining, by any means, a satisfactory wardrobe.
As long as we live, we must wear some kind of uniform. I hope that we don't forget that our true selves are naked, and remembering these naked selves, we look once more at our clothed lives and put them in order. In the Heart Sutra it says, "No birth, no extinction, no defilement, no purity." This is the true, naked self, which has cast off even the clothes of birth and death and enlightenment and delusion.
Sawaki Roshi: When a woman dies, it doesn't make any difference whether she is beautiful or ugly. Is a beauty's skull superior to an ugly woman's? That has nothing to do with truth.
****
There are no rich, no poor, no great, no plain. These are only words that make us anxious.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Money
Sawaki Roshi: If you have no money, you are in trouble. But it's good to know that there are more important things than money. If you have no sexual desire, something is wrong. But it's good to know that there are more important things than sexual desire.
Uchiyama Roshi: If I were super-rich, I would by everything. If I gave a lot of money to neighbors and people around me, they would greet me with smiles. When someone is in trouble, in most cases they are suffering from a shortage of cash. I would give them money unsparingly and solve their problems. If I got sick, I would go to one of those hospitals furnished like aluxury hotel and hire several beautiful, young nurses. I could recieve medical treatment while feasting my eyes. When I got old, I could make people think that I was a kind and trustworthy person. I could enjoy a fabulous second youth. I could act as a peacemaker saying, "Hey, I'll buy the Vietnam War!" and resolve the conflict by giving both sides a fat lot of money.
There is always disagreement in the areas of economics, politics, and philosophy. Although they all seem to be very complicated, most problems can be solved with money, if we have enough of it. But when you believe it is possible to solve any problem with money, you become totally dependent on it. Unfortunately, the problem of the self can't be solved with money.
Once I met a man who had inherited a large fortune from his parents, but who was so worried about losing it that he became neurotic. We read that in Sweden there are many people who commit suicide out of despair, even though the country ensures a livelihood for all its citizens and has no problems with its economy. When people look into themselves, they do not find their lives at all settled.
Uchiyama Roshi: If I were super-rich, I would by everything. If I gave a lot of money to neighbors and people around me, they would greet me with smiles. When someone is in trouble, in most cases they are suffering from a shortage of cash. I would give them money unsparingly and solve their problems. If I got sick, I would go to one of those hospitals furnished like aluxury hotel and hire several beautiful, young nurses. I could recieve medical treatment while feasting my eyes. When I got old, I could make people think that I was a kind and trustworthy person. I could enjoy a fabulous second youth. I could act as a peacemaker saying, "Hey, I'll buy the Vietnam War!" and resolve the conflict by giving both sides a fat lot of money.
There is always disagreement in the areas of economics, politics, and philosophy. Although they all seem to be very complicated, most problems can be solved with money, if we have enough of it. But when you believe it is possible to solve any problem with money, you become totally dependent on it. Unfortunately, the problem of the self can't be solved with money.
Once I met a man who had inherited a large fortune from his parents, but who was so worried about losing it that he became neurotic. We read that in Sweden there are many people who commit suicide out of despair, even though the country ensures a livelihood for all its citizens and has no problems with its economy. When people look into themselves, they do not find their lives at all settled.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Our inertial lives
Sawaki Roshi: A strange creature, the human being; groping in the dark with an intelligent look.
****
Human beings strive only to avoid boredom.
****
A lot of things in this world attract you. But once you do, or get them, they're worthless.
****
There are people who never find their own way in life.
Uchiyama Roshi: If I broach the subject of the essence of your life, you might feel as if some old, moldy clothes were being given to you. But when we reflect deeply on thge essence of our own lives, we will realize that this is not an old, moldy subject, but our lives as we live them are. Why? Because we get up sheerly through inertia, eat breakfast through inertia, encounter our aquaintences through inertia, watch televison through inertia, read magazines through inertia, and go to work through inertia. We spend most of our time this way.
How do we find our lives worth living at all? We are always running after one thing or another so that we don't have to consider this question. When we play mah-jong, we find the significance of life in winning a game. When we go to a department store, we find the significance of life in shopping. If we can't afford to buy things, we find the significance of life in imaginig that we could. When we watch baseball or sumo wrestling, we find the significance of life in hoping our favorite athletes will win. These activites are merely diversions. No matter how clamourous the times in which we live, we should sincerely reflect on the meaning of life.
****
Human beings strive only to avoid boredom.
****
A lot of things in this world attract you. But once you do, or get them, they're worthless.
****
There are people who never find their own way in life.
Uchiyama Roshi: If I broach the subject of the essence of your life, you might feel as if some old, moldy clothes were being given to you. But when we reflect deeply on thge essence of our own lives, we will realize that this is not an old, moldy subject, but our lives as we live them are. Why? Because we get up sheerly through inertia, eat breakfast through inertia, encounter our aquaintences through inertia, watch televison through inertia, read magazines through inertia, and go to work through inertia. We spend most of our time this way.
How do we find our lives worth living at all? We are always running after one thing or another so that we don't have to consider this question. When we play mah-jong, we find the significance of life in winning a game. When we go to a department store, we find the significance of life in shopping. If we can't afford to buy things, we find the significance of life in imaginig that we could. When we watch baseball or sumo wrestling, we find the significance of life in hoping our favorite athletes will win. These activites are merely diversions. No matter how clamourous the times in which we live, we should sincerely reflect on the meaning of life.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Calculating The Difference
Sawaki Roshi: During World War Two, I visited a colliery and went into a coal mine in Kyushu.
Like the colliers, I put on a hat with a lamp and went down in an elevator. For some time, I thought the elevator went down steadily. Then I started to fell as if it were going up. I shined my light in the coal shaft and realized, "Oh! It's still going down." When the elevator starts going down, you actually feel that it's going down, but once the speed becomes fixed, it's possible to feel as if it were going up. That's the other side of the balance. In the ups and downs of life we are deceived by the difference in balance.
****
Saying, "I've got Satori!" is only feeling the difference in the balance. Saying, "I'm deluded!" is only feeling another difference in the balance. To say it's delicious or it tastes terrible, to be rich, to be poor, all are just feeling about the differences in the balance.
****
In most cases, common sense only shows a difference in the balance.
****
A human being puts his "I" into everything without knowing it. "Oh, that was good!" he sometimes says. What is good? It's just good for him, that's all.
****
The reason that we human beings are often exhausted is that we do things with personal profit in mind.
Uchiyama Roshi: Usually, we are terribly concerned about luck. Are there really such things as good luck and bad luck? There aren't. There are only calculating measures. Only when expect to make things profitable for ourselves, is it possible to feel that we didn't make it. Only when we compete with others, is it possible to feel the difference in the balance as loss.
True religion takes no notice of the human desire to make things profitable for ourselves or our calculating measurement. If we throw away our ordinary expectations and take an attitude of settling down on whichever side of the balance we fall, it is right there that a truly peaceful life unfolds. Doing zazen is to stop being an ordinary person.
Like the colliers, I put on a hat with a lamp and went down in an elevator. For some time, I thought the elevator went down steadily. Then I started to fell as if it were going up. I shined my light in the coal shaft and realized, "Oh! It's still going down." When the elevator starts going down, you actually feel that it's going down, but once the speed becomes fixed, it's possible to feel as if it were going up. That's the other side of the balance. In the ups and downs of life we are deceived by the difference in balance.
****
Saying, "I've got Satori!" is only feeling the difference in the balance. Saying, "I'm deluded!" is only feeling another difference in the balance. To say it's delicious or it tastes terrible, to be rich, to be poor, all are just feeling about the differences in the balance.
****
In most cases, common sense only shows a difference in the balance.
****
A human being puts his "I" into everything without knowing it. "Oh, that was good!" he sometimes says. What is good? It's just good for him, that's all.
****
The reason that we human beings are often exhausted is that we do things with personal profit in mind.
Uchiyama Roshi: Usually, we are terribly concerned about luck. Are there really such things as good luck and bad luck? There aren't. There are only calculating measures. Only when expect to make things profitable for ourselves, is it possible to feel that we didn't make it. Only when we compete with others, is it possible to feel the difference in the balance as loss.
True religion takes no notice of the human desire to make things profitable for ourselves or our calculating measurement. If we throw away our ordinary expectations and take an attitude of settling down on whichever side of the balance we fall, it is right there that a truly peaceful life unfolds. Doing zazen is to stop being an ordinary person.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Collecting Food and Hatching Eggs
Sawaki Roshi: Everyone steeps himself in his own life or lives, blindly believing that there must be something to his daily activity. But in reality, a human being's life does not differ from a swallow's, the males collecting food and the females hatching eggs.
Uchiyama Roshi: This is the season swallows are flying about. People working in the shadow of tall buildings in the city probably miss seeing swallows hatching in the spring. It's a lovely site to see them during spring and summer, isn't it? Some people just get by in life, live from day to day, and never see their lives as a whole. Kobo-Daishi(774-835, the founder of the Shingon Sect) called them Ishoteiyoshin, a flock of stray sheep.
Uchiyama Roshi: This is the season swallows are flying about. People working in the shadow of tall buildings in the city probably miss seeing swallows hatching in the spring. It's a lovely site to see them during spring and summer, isn't it? Some people just get by in life, live from day to day, and never see their lives as a whole. Kobo-Daishi(774-835, the founder of the Shingon Sect) called them Ishoteiyoshin, a flock of stray sheep.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Zen Master Patrick
Here is a funny parody on Zen.
Go to minute 3:30. In this instance, Stanley Squarepants is representative of what actually happens in zazen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g24UxCIx8QA
Enjoy :)
Al
Go to minute 3:30. In this instance, Stanley Squarepants is representative of what actually happens in zazen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g24UxCIx8QA
Enjoy :)
Al
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
One's Own Opinion
Sawaki Roshi: Human beings are not the same. Our consciousness is our own individual possession.
******
Everyone just sees the world from their own hole. They drag their opinion and thoughts along with them; that's why there is so much trouble in this world.
Uchiyama Roshi: Usually we consider ourselves to be very important. We take it for granted that our own thoughts are the best measure of things and judge others' activities and the conditions around us as to whether they are good or bad. When things do not go well according to our judgement, we become angry , get into trouble, and carry around bad feelings afterwards. At times like these, if you can see that this world does not exist only for you, and that your evaluation of things is not absolute, you will be able to breathe more freely and need not cause trouble for others.
Prince Shotoku(574-622 A.D.) expressed it skillfully in the Constitution of Seventeen Articles. He said: "If you are right, then others are wrong; if others are right, then you are wrong. You are not right all the time; others are not right all the time. We are all nothing but ordinary people." This means not only others but you are also just an ordinary person.
******
Everyone just sees the world from their own hole. They drag their opinion and thoughts along with them; that's why there is so much trouble in this world.
Uchiyama Roshi: Usually we consider ourselves to be very important. We take it for granted that our own thoughts are the best measure of things and judge others' activities and the conditions around us as to whether they are good or bad. When things do not go well according to our judgement, we become angry , get into trouble, and carry around bad feelings afterwards. At times like these, if you can see that this world does not exist only for you, and that your evaluation of things is not absolute, you will be able to breathe more freely and need not cause trouble for others.
Prince Shotoku(574-622 A.D.) expressed it skillfully in the Constitution of Seventeen Articles. He said: "If you are right, then others are wrong; if others are right, then you are wrong. You are not right all the time; others are not right all the time. We are all nothing but ordinary people." This means not only others but you are also just an ordinary person.
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